Tuesday, September 6, 2016

The CEO Came DOA by Heather Haven Interview, Giveaway & Review

The CEO Came DOA by Heather Haven

The CEO Came DOA by Heather Haven

The CEO Came DOA (The Alvarez Family Murder Mysteries) Cozy Mystery 5th in Series The Wives of Bath Press (September 1, 2016) Print Length: 306 pages

ASIN: B01HSMVBDC

Synopsis

Lee Alvarez takes a job ferreting out the saboteur of a start-up company’s Initial Public Offering in the heart of Silicon Valley. Little does she know early one morning she will find the CEO hanging by the neck in the boardroom wearing nothing but his baby blue boxers. Was it suicide? Or was it one of the many people who loathed the man on sight, including his famous rock singer ex? Enter the world’s scariest drug, Devil’s Breath, and the bodies start piling up all the while she’s planning her very own Christmas wedding. Ho, ho, ho.

About The Author

After studying drama at the University of Miami in Florida, Heather went to Manhattan to pursue a career. There she wrote short stories, comedy acts, television treatments, ad copy, commercials, and two one-act plays, which were produced, among other places, at the famed Playwrights Horizon. Once, she even ghostwrote a book on how to run an employment agency. She was unemployed at the time.

Her first novel started the Silicon Valley based Alvarez Family Murder Mystery Series. Murder is a Family Business, Book One, won the Single Titles Reviewers’ Choice Award 2011, followed by the second, A Wedding to Die For, 2012 Global and EPIC finalist for Best eBook Mystery of the Year. Death Runs in the Family won the coveted Global Gold for Best Mystery Novel, 2013. DEAD….If Only won the Global Silver for Best Mystery Novel, 2015. Her fifth novel of the series, The CEO Came DOA, debuts September, 2016. She loves writing this series mainly because she gets to play all of the characters, including the cat!

Heather’s other series, The Persephone Cole Vintage Mystery Series, is set in Manhattan circa 1942, during our country’s entrance into WWII. The Dagger Before Me, Book One, was voted best historical and mystery novel by Amazon readers in October, 2013. It was followed by Iced Diamonds. Book Three, The Chocolate Kiss-Off, is a 2016 Lefty Award Finalist Best Historical Mystery.

On a personal note, her proudest award is the Silver IPPY (Independent Publisher Book Awards) Best Mystery/thriller 2014 for Death of a Clown. The stand-alone noir mystery is steeped in Heather’s family history. Daughter of real-life Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus folk, her mother was a trapeze artist/performer and father, an elephant trainer. Heather likes to say she

brings the daily existence of the Big Top to life during World War II, embellished by her own murderous imagination.

Heather gives lectures, speaks at book clubs, and moderates author panels in the Bay Area, as well as teaching the art of writing. She believes everyone should write something, be it a poem, short story or letter. Then go out and plant a tree. The world will be a better place for it.

I live in San Jose, California, but I’m originally from
Sarasota, Florida, the daughter of two members of Ringling Brother’s Circus in
its heyday. My father was an elephant trainer and my mother a performer. I like
to say I was born on a trunk at
Ringling Brothers Circus. Ba-da-boom.

Tell us your latest
news?

The CEO Came DOA,
Book five of the humorous Alvarez Family Murder Mysteries, is finally out! I am
thrilled.

When and why did you
begin writing?

I think I’ve always been called to the written word.The first book I can remember reading
was Uncle Remus. That’s when I was six or seven. At age nine, I went to the
public library and checked out Nancy Drew
and the Secret of the Old Clock. My life was changed forever. I not only
fell in love with reading, big time, I fell in love with mysteries and writing.
It’s a love affair that has never waned. I went to college on a costume
scholarship and studied drama. Ultimately, I went to NYC to become an actress,
but I hated it. I hated the life of an actor. It wasn’t for me. All that
traveling! Living out of a suitcase! Who needs it? However, I loved writing. I
could sit in a room and write for hours, send characters to the far corners of
the earth and not have to leave my chair. To make money, I worked in
advertising for a while, wrote short stories, one-act plays, and ad copy for
humorous ads, and acts for performers. I didn’t tackle writing a book until I moved
to California.

When did you first
consider yourself a writer?

Always. However, when did the world consider me a writer?
There’s a question for another time.

What inspired you to
write your first book?

Like that wonderful song from the Broadway show A Chorus Line, “I Can Do That!” I thought
I could do that. After all, I read two or three cozies a week and I was a
writer. Little did I know writing that first novel would be so difficult. The
first novel of the Alvarez series took me nearly four years to finish!

Do you have a
specific writing style?

Hmmmm. Warm, funny, filled with imagery and truth? Let’s go
there. I suppose whatever writing style I have, I need to thank P.G. Wodehouse
and Agatha Christie for helping me out. I have read every book of Wodehouse’s I
can get my hands on and he wrote over 90! His writing can make me laugh like no
one else’s. He’s most famous for the Jeeves and Bertie Wooster collection of
short stories and books, but he was a prolific writer of screenplays, plays,
novels, short stories, pretty much anything. I’m a big fan. Then there’s Agatha
Christie, the queen of the mystery, the plot maker, the one who made the modern
mystery chilling, yet warm and fuzzy. These two wonderful writers have inspired
me to try to my level best.

How did you come up
with the title?

The title The CEO Came
DOA hit me over the head one night completely out of the blue. I just loved
it. I actually geared the entire storyline around the title. I’ve never done
that before.

Is there a message in
your novel that you want readers to grasp?

The Alvarez family
is a supportive and positive group no matter what gets thrown at them. I wanted
protagonist, Lee Alvarez, to be a slightly flawed person (real), but not so
much so she couldn’t learn and grow. Mainly, she’s happy to be in the world.
She loves life. She wants to be a better person. Also, and this is important to
me, I love culturally blended people. The Italian half of my family came to the
States at a time when it was difficult to be an Italian immigrant. But my
family worked hard to integrate and become useful members of our society. I
decided to write about new immigrants working hard and succeeding. The series
revolves around a half-Latino, half Palo Alto blueblood family who manage to
capture the American dream through perseverance, hard work, and familial love.

What would you like
my readers to know?

Stepping up on my soapbox: Life is short. Don’t take it for
granted. Do your best every day. Write something, even if it’s just a letter.
You will be better for it. Then go out and plant a tree. The world will be
better for it.

And if you want a little excitement and few laughs, read my
books!

My Review:

I really enjoyed this fun, fast paced and twisting plot. I was not sure what to expect, because this is the fifth book in the series. However, I did not feel lost because this book has so much going on. A new baby, a wedding, and bodies piling up in the business world. Who could it be? I thought for sure it was a rival business, then the crazy ex, then maybe someone from a previous book that I had no clue about. That is only part of what this book has to offer. Text messaging, teasing banter between the characters and even a Mark Zuckerberg quote is thrown in. The quotes were fun to read, as was the setting (Silicon Valley). This is a great summer read. I am giving this book a 4/5. I was given a copy to review, however all opinions are my own.